This is a little taste of “Untethered,” and Chapter 9 follows.
I hope you enjoy it.
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Things escalated quickly when the two guards who accompanied the Big Guy earlier came out of the bunker hatch alone. Within a minute, the Humvee returned to pick them up. When they drove off in a cloud of dust and gravel, the critical nature of their mission became very clear, and Russ put it to music, “Guys, we need to get into that bunker and find that humanoid before the bomb falls.”
Already anticipating Russ’s command, AIMEE spoke to him, “I detect no video surveillance between our current position and the hatch door.”
“Of course not. Too easy.” Russ fired off orders. “Let’s roll, guys. Polo, on me. Setter, you got our backs at the door.”
“Look at the door, Russell. Concentrate. Look beyond it,” AIMEE demanded, and he complied.
He did and saw instantly what her vision picked up. The hallway beyond was about fifty feet long and empty. “The doorway to the right will take you to the hostage. You need to hurry.”
Russ and Marcus raced down the hallway and kicked in the door at the end. When they burst into the room beyond, a figure sat lashed to a chair in an upright position, hands bound at the wrists with arms extended overhead by rope. Even while seated, Russ knew Big Guy had to be at least seven feet tall. His head was not clean-shaven, as Russ first thought; it was hairless. His whole head was hairless, with no eyebrows or lashes and no visible signs of a beard. His eyes were ominously black with no visible irises. All his facial features looked normal, but he clearly was beyond human. His features were almost too perfect.
Marty shouted as they stood there, spellbound and staring, “Freeze!”
The giant HVT looked at Marty nonchalantly and said, “Should I freeze right here where I’m lashed to a chair and cannot possibly move, or is there someplace else I need to freeze that’s better for you?”
Russ shook his head, partially from embarrassment, partially to hide his amusement, and partially from not understanding how such a beast like this could be rendered so helpless, be so sarcastic, have a dry wit, and yet be so…so…polite. He liked Big Guy already and his gut said nothing to discourage knowing more about the man…err…the HAI.
“Ask him to describe his primary mission,” said AIMEE.
Russ directed his question directly to the giant, “Look, dude, we have no idea who you are or how you got to be here, so why don’t you fill us in? Who are you, and what’s your dog in this hunt? As a courtesy,” he continued, “your arms tied over your head like that can be uncomfortable. I will gladly cut them loose as soon as I’m convinced you are not going to go ape-shit crazy and kill us all.”
The big guy swung his head to look Russ in the eye and shouted, “Hey! I don’t kill organics. That’s why I’m strung up like a side of beef. They wanted a killer without a conscience who would kill on command. My conscience got in the way, and I failed my primary mission. I was their glaring mistake because I had a conscience. So here I sit, waiting for them to exterminate one of mankind’s greatest achievements because it would not kill on demand.”
Zack did not immediately respond as he covertly addressed AIMEE, “What should we do? Is he telling the truth?
“He’s one of the good ones, Russ, and he can help us find the ones who are not so good. Welcome him, and then let’s get off this “X” before it’s rubble. I mean now!
Russ unsheathed his favorite Ka-Bar and sliced through the restraints on the big guy. As Russ leaned closer to separate his wrist bindings, he whispered into the hairless man’s ear. “We need to talk.”
“Yes. We will,” said the big guy, “but not now. It is imperative that we do not die in this tomb and forever bury the secrets behind their conspiracy. They must be stopped before the next version of me is activated. We must leave immediately. They want the three of you dead, too. You were tagged as HVTs as witnesses. One bomb would bury a very big secret.”
Russ’s head was spinning. “Conspiracy? Talking with an Android? Witnesses? Secret? What are your thoughts, AIMEE?”
“YES…only one thought…GO…Now! Go out the way we came in and keep heading south. The ground drops away into a creek after a hundred yards, so you will be below the horizontal effects from the blast radius. Just run,” implored AIMEE.
They ran. Russ barked out instructions on his coms as they bolted down the long hallway to the back hatch. “Head south. Keep running. Keep phones off. Throat mics only.” Running next to the big guy, loping along easily, he said, “Big Guy, you are my shadow. If I’m correct, you were the only HVT until we stumbled into the role with you. We were a bonus, but the price is still on your head. I’m thinking you need to…”
Words evaporated along with gravity as all four of them stepped into the hidden drop-off simultaneously, falling nearly a dozen feet onto a sharp slope downward twenty feet or so to the bottom. They plunged, rolled, and ricocheted down to a dry creek bed just as the night lit up with a million candles of blue-white illumination.
The detonation thundered with a muffled whump that rocked the ground under where they lay sprawled as the searing hot blast wave ripped over their heads twenty feet above. It almost felt like a secondary explosion when the ground lifted up around and above the hatch for at least fifty yards before gravity reclaimed it. They did the same dirt dance as they lay in shock, unmoving, waiting for whatever would come next. Their close proximity to ground zero made them a target for a great deal of debris to rain down on them.
The view around the blast zone near where they lay was stunning. The hillside was no longer a hill. The bunker entrance was gone. In fact, the whole goddam hill was gone. In its place was a smoldering, bowl-like crater of pulverized rock and concrete with whiskers of rebar sticking throughout the walls of the crator..
Russ spoke into his mic, “Nobody moves. That buzz you hear is not your ears ringing; it’s a drone. This whole area is being scanned. They’re looking for proof of life. I think we all have enough detritus on us from the explosion to not show thermals. Just…don’t…move.”
The drone sounded like it followed a grid pattern by the even fluctuation of the buzzing sound coming closer then fading. Eventually, the buzzing faded entirely.
“We are clear. The drone is gone,” said AIMEE.
“Polo? Setter? You guys tight?” asked Russ.
“Roger that,” they answered.
Russ said, “Let’s give it another 30, then head back to the trailhead where we parked. I have no doubt they will sift through the rubble to find the evidence they need to prove that Big Guy and three witnesses are in the ashes.”
“So, what are you not sayin’ dude?” asked Polo.
“What I’m not saying is that we need to hide Big Guy until we figure out what our next move should be,” said Russ. “I’m also not asking, not saying – give me your dog tags.”
“Why?” exclaimed Marty.
“Because you’re dead, dumbass,” growled Polo.
“Because we all died in the blast, and the only thing left of the witnesses were their tags,” said Russ as he collected the tags, walked to the edge of the crater, and threw them one at a time into the rubble. When he sat back down, he said, “That might slow them down, but we’re still candidates for elimination if they can’t connect DNA with the tags.”
Polo asked, “Where do you think we should go to ground?”
“I have the perfect place equipped with a safe room and plenty of toys you guys might appreciate.”
“Sounds interesting…and vaguely familiar for some reason,” said Marty. “My brother said something about enjoying peaches and burning a lot of powder during one visit he made to the farm.”
“Yes, he did, Setter. We were dove hunting, and I remember Pete shooting a lot more holes in the sky than bringing down any doves. I hope you’re a better shot. Let’s roll,” said Russ.
“Mark GPS on that crater, Polo, so I can report it to the park service anonymously right now, then I’ll ditch my phone. I suggest pulling the SIM cards from our phones and ditching them in pieces as we head south. I have several burners in my GoBag back at the Bronco I’ll give you.
I anticipate helicopters with forensic investigators from some government agency as soon as the sun is up. Getting some Rangers trooping around could improve our chances. No sense making it easy for them.”
They stood and headed south after Russ left a message with the Park Service. The high edges of the gully fell away giving them an easier path to get into the treeline. Russ said, “The ranger station, which we absolutely must avoid entirely, is near the trailhead where I’m parked. I’m doubtful they’ve been alerted this early, but we cannot take any chance of being seen.
In his mind, Russ reached out, “AIMEE, you’re being awfully quiet. What am I missing?”
“Russell, I agree with getting Big Guy off the grid as your top priority. We have much to discover yet about him, so pick someplace we can have uninterrupted time to talk. I can fill you in with a great deal of information because we have been having our own telepathic back-channel conversations. Big Guy is of immense value because of the so-called mistake that made him expendable. He has a conscience. His conscience is priceless; his conscience is what saved him, and his conscience will get him killed.
He’s not just a big organic with AI connections like you, Zack, and the others; he’s a pure AI-driven humanoid with organic features and, most concerning, untold powers and capabilities. You must remember that he was designed and built to kill, so his code was written to optimize his performance, both physical and intellectual abilities. He must have incredible strength because his internal construction is robotic articulations with a human-like exterior.
I think he may have a darker side and not always be the gentle, passive type we’ve witnessed. We need to do our diligence and dig into his creation roots. We must also understand his assessment of what will happen now that he has been eliminated as a mistake. We need to know who created him sooner rather than later because if Big Guy was a mistake, you can assume they will correct that mistake in the next AI-driven Humanoid. God help us all if what’s happening covertly by the military is a peak into our future.”
“I hear you. We must get to the farm for deeper conversation and some peach cobbler. I hope Big Guy can feel comfortable enough to engage in our discussions. I hope he will want to join us versus any of us asking him. He needs to be solidly beyond any assumptions or confusion about our mission and have no reservations about being a part of it.”
“And that mission is?”
Russ pulled a classic bypass and ignore tactic on AIMEE’s question, “So…if I understand what you just described, Zack and I are Organic AIs or OAIs. That means Big Guy must be a Humanoid AI or an HAI, right?”
“AIMEE said, “Whatever floats your boat, Marine. We must ensure Big Guy is the first and last HAI to walk the earth.”
“And that,” said Russ, revealing he had heard her question, “is our mission.”
* * *
This storyline is wearing me out to write it. What happens to these guys is exhausting. The relentless Wench Muse just throws her head back and laughs, still managing to remain just out of reach. Hope you enjoyed this teaser. Let me know in comments. Thanks!
Peace! G.